Choosing The Best Eye Care Regimen

Eye Care: A Simple Guide to Protect Your Eyes in the Workplace

11 February 2016

Faith Carlson

Protecting your eyes is important, and you should do your best to avoid dangers. One of the places you need to protect your eyes is at the workplace. The truth is, your workplace (depending on your work) can pose a danger to your eyes. But, this guide will help you understand the dangers and help you protect your eyes while you go to work.

Why You Should Protect Your Eyes

The staggering truth is that close to 300,000 workers have suffered some type of eye-related emergency while they were engaged in work and had to go to the emergency room. These eye-related incidents have caused everything from small traumas or retinal scratches to vision loss. Statistics also show that forty percent of the injuries came from industries like construction or manufacturing. But there are other industries where eye protection may be needed, like the health care and hospitality industry to name a few.

What's worse is that most of these issues could have been prevented with specified safety eye protective gear. Consider talking to your employer or eye care specialist about protecting your eyes while you work, as he or she may have ideas.

Simple Guidelines to Protect Yourself at Work

Know Your Surroundings

The simplest thing you can do is make sure you remove or are aware of possible dangers. Dangers could be anything from nails to items that could produce dust (dust can be dangerous to your eyes). Do your best to block these items, or remove them from your working area until you are safely away from the location.

Increasing Eye Reaction Time

Your eyes have reflexes that help protect your eyes, but just like any other muscle in your body, you can improve these reflexes a little. The key is to improve your peripheral vision that allows you to see to your left or right while staring ahead. The following are some exercises that may help you improve your peripheral vision:

Focus on an object that is directly in front of you while attempting to look both right and left alternately. Do this for a few minutes a day, and your eye reflexes should improve.

Try to play a few sports, like soccer or football, that force you to stretch your eye's reflexes a little more.

Use the toothpick exercise, which basically involves focusing on one object and placing a straw in a cup right at the edge of your field of vision. Then, try to put your toothpick inside of the straw without loosing focus on the object you are looking at.

A eye care specialist, such as The Eye Depot, may have other exercises that could help speed up your eye's reflexes. But, as you can see, there are some things you can do to keep your eyes safe while you work.

When I figured out that I had vision problems, I was really nervous about wearing glasses, getting contacts, or undergoing eye surgery. I didn't know what to choose, how comfortable I would be, or what to do about the upcoming changes in my life. In order to make sense of my new lifestyle, I made an appointment with a trained optician in my area to have a little chat. I mentioned my fears, and he talked with me about all of the different options available. It was incredible to see how much of a difference the right advice made. I was fitted with custom glasses, and my journey is detailed on my website. If you are nervous, read on to learn why you shouldn't be.